As various electronic apparatus has become more compact and available, areas on PCB's have become more restricted, needs to provide contacts for higher densities have developed. In recent consumer electronic appliances and devices for office automation it has developed that connectors are needed wherein contacts in substantial number, twenty or more, having a 0.5 mm to 0.635 mm center line pitch with 1 mm or lower spacing between contacts in adjacent rows are necessary.
An example of such requirements is disclosed in, for example, the Japanese patent application number 72570/90, now open as a publication. FIGS. 6 and 7 of this application, labeled herein as prior art, illustrate such connector to include a base housing 11 retaining a plurality of contacts 17 in two rows, upper and lower, and a cap or face housing 10 to be assembled integrally with the base housing 11 for protecting the contacts. The face housing includes screw holes 22 for mounting the assembled electrical connector on a panel, a PCB or the like. Both housings 10 and 11 are molded from a suitable engineering plastic material and the face housing is assembled as an integral part with the base housing by inserting the latching arms 18 thereof into latching openings 12 of the face housing. In molding the two housings which must intermate, the positioning of contacts in the base housing can be critical to the tolerances of such housings, particularly in the miniature and high density electrical connectors with 1 mm or shorter contact pitches as mentioned above. Additionally, this fine pitch of contacts and the line width on printed circuit boards to which the connectors must be connected make the alignment of the arrays of contacts quite critical, particularly in the very fine pitch applications heretofore mentioned.
Accordingly it is an object of the present invention to provide a miniature, high density electrical connector particularly suited for PCB mounting with 1 mm or less contact pitch. It is a further object to provide a method of making a connector wherein pitches of 1 mm or less are contemplated. It is still a further object to provide an electrical connector having high density electrical contacts wherein the alignment between contacts and a connector housing is assured.